


with my childhood's faith

by Cordelia



Series: i shall but love thee better [1]
Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Afterlife fic, M/M, Reuniting, set directly after novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2013-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-20 09:35:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cordelia/pseuds/Cordelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk.  Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood, like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with my childhood's faith

_In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk.  Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood, like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun._

I do not see him at first.  I cannot - the sourceless light that shines behind him blinds me, but I do not stop.  I cannot stop.  His silhouette is a dark shape that rapidly approaches against the warm glow of Elysium – I feel my heart swell at the familiar sight of his speed, at last, at last.  It is not until he is a breath away that I realise I have been running too, and we almost crash into each other in our haste. 

 

And then he is grasping me, his hands pulling my face to his, kisses raining over my cheeks.  He is crying, the wet droplets sliding from his face onto mine and then I too am crying, reaching for him.  My fists find their way into his tunic and we tumble to the floor, bodies pressed tight to each other as though separating would kill us over again.  Perhaps it would.  His heart beats – how peculiar, some part of me thinks, that the soul breathes as the body once did – rapidly against his rib cage.  I can hear it loudly as my cheek has found its way to his chest, resting just beneath the crook of his neck, his face pressed into my hair as though to breathe me in.  We are still sobbing, clutching each other in relief, in desperation, with overwhelming joy. 

 

It is then he pulls his face back, and I look up at him finally.  Now I can see the hazel-green of his eyes, rimmed with red, the tear tracks on his sharp cheekbones, the utter love in his gaze.  I do not know what I look like; much the same, I presume, though not even half as handsome.    

 

But that does not matter to him.

 

Words escape me as I stare back into his eyes, lost.  Found.  I do not know what I can say that will be enough to comfort, to reassure, to tell him of my undying love.  He has always had a way with words, however.  He has always known what to say.  In this moment I feel a flicker of fear – how do I express in words what I have been feeling, a lost soul who watched him cradle my body, so close and yet too far away to be heard.  Watching his death, watching his murderous son, seeing everyone who could help bring us together turn away and go back across the sea.  His mother, at last, understanding.  I cannot put this into words, so I stare at him stupidly, honestly, too overwhelmed to speak even a word.  But words have always come so easily to Achilles. 

 

Taking my face in his hands, thumbs stroking my cheekbones once and then stopping to cup my temples, Achilles smiles.  With the gentle tone he has always reserved for me, he speaks.

 

“Patroclus.” 

 

Pat-ro-clus. 

 

It is enough.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the ever-lovely cutecosette.
> 
> The title of this fic (and the series and the fic that follows) comes from Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which is all about her love for her husband being eternal (ergo fits Achilles/Patroclus pretty well).
> 
> The following fic is basically afterlife smut by the way.


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